2008 - Monongalia County Courthouse

Monongalia County Courthouse is the twenty forth print in the ALPHA series West Virginia Architectural and Engineering Heritage. A County Courthouse serves many purposes; conducting government business, acting as an anchor in a downtown business district and in many cases acting as a place of justice and punishment. The Monongalia County Courthouse is no exception. Located on High Street in downtown Morgantown, The Monongalia County Courthouse is constructed on property that has been home to four courthouses, the most recent being constructed in 1891. Still the center of the downtown business district, the Courthouse Square has seen many changes since the original trustees laid out the town. Absent from the Courthouse Square are several punishment implements, including the whipping post, stocks and scaffold. The gallows that aided in the first public hanging in 1797 are also a thing of the past. The Courthouse is on the National Register of Historic Places and was designed by Architect James Bailey of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The design echoes the Romanesque Revival style, with an elaborate asymmetrical plan of three towers, the tallest at five stories is adorned with a clock that watches over downtown Morgantown. The Courthouse has gone through several operational and aesthetic changes over its more than 100 years of history. Unchanged since 1851 is a statue that stands inside the Courthouse stairwell as a reminder of the past. The statue originally crowned the dome of an earlier Monongalia County Courthouse and depicts Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, who signed the documents creating Monongalia County.